Firefighters keep Sunbanks blaze at bay

A fire that originated at a local resort spread rapidly over a hill separating the resort from the rest of Electric City, but ultimately required all local fire crews, federal wildland firefighters, and air support to suppress Tuesday.

Fire calls went out between 2 and 3 p.m., drawing in local firefighters from all stations, and prompting fire chiefs to call for air support.

The blaze, which got away from a Sunbanks Lake Resort fire, the origin of which was not clear at the time of this writing, as it headed up the hill on the eastern side of the resort when Grand Coulee Volunteer Fire Department Chief Ryan Fish called for mutual aid.

Electric City Volunteer Fire Department Chief Mark Payne was in Belvedere when he heard the call and rushed to the station.

Local hillsides have been repeatedly baked in high temperatures so far this month and are primed to burn. The National Weather Service had issued a "fire weather warning" due to high heat and low humidity. That was to be upgraded to a Red Flag Warning Wednesday.

As the fire grew Tuesday, residents were told to get ready to evacuate, but it didn't quite come to that.

The Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the chief wildland fire fighting agency in the state, on July 10 had issued a total ban on all burning on lands it protects.

Sunbanks sits on land under a long-term lease from DNR, but until recently it was within Electric City's boundaries. The city voted to "de-annex" it earlier this year.

Electric City firefighters last spring doused a fire in a "huge" burn pile on the property because it's within a no-burn area under state law governing "Growth Management" zones.

Payne said it would likely be hard to find an origin of Tuesday's fire in the burned rubble of that pile.

Payne was perplexed as to why it took 45 minutes to an hour to get air support from a helicopter DNR has under contract at the Grand Coulee Dam Airport a few miles away.

He said other air assets - "scooper" airplanes stationed at Omak - were called in while local chiefs were convincing DNR authorities the helicopter should be used.

About 8:30 Tuesday night, only a few tendrils of smoke rose from the charred land next to the state Department of Transportation's green metal building a few feet from the edge of it the blackened hillside along highway 155.

Payne was getting ready for a planning meeting with federal Bureau of Land Management firefighters. That agency has contracted with the Bureau of Reclamation to fight its wildfires and BLM has the use of those scooper aircraft.

In the end, Payne said, the burned area totaled only about 50 acres, and no structures were lost, not counting a broken windowpane on a DOT shed. A large house overlooking Banks Lake was saved when the planes arrived, its gate locked while the homeowner was away.

The BLM firefighters were planning to keep watch on the remnants of the wildfire through the night.

Local firefighters worried that "burn piles" on the land could still present hazards for days as they smolder.

Wednesday's Red Flag Warning comes as the NWS predicts dry thunderstorms for the region, with gusty winds across lands that will still feel 100-plus-degree days for the next week.